Five months after bidding farewell in Ushuaia, after our three week expedition to dedicate the Southern part of the Antarctic monument, 45 of the South 2015 voyagers meet again at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge home of the Northern part of the monument.

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Trustees

The trustees of the British Antarctic Monument Trust are:

Brian Dorsett-Bailey, Secretary

Brian is the elder brother of Jeremy Bailey who lost his life in the Tottanfjella in 1965 and is particularly concerned to connect with other families of those that were lost.

Unlike the other Trustees and Ambassadors, Brian has neither worked nor visited the Antarctic. He is however hoping that he will be able to attend the inauguration of the southern part of the Antarctic Monument and at the same time see some of the continent for himself.

On leaving Watford Grammar School in 1958 he joined the Construction Group , Bovis Ltd where received an all round training in the building industry. In 1963 he was seconded to United Nations Association to assist in the supervision of the construction of 1500 homes, following the devastating earthquake in Skopje, Yugolavia. Other contracts on which was involved during his career were the refurbishment of Casemates in the Tower of London and the 1964 refurbishment of The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In later years he became a self-employed building cost consultant until his recent retirement. In 2007 he was invited to attend the 50th Halley Reunion where he met several of his brother’s former colleagues including Rod Rhys Jones who invited him to become a Trustee of the British Antarctic Monument Trust. Brian is also now a member of the BAS Club.

Kenneth Gibson

Ken joined the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1957 following eight years in the Royal Navy mostly in the Far East and Mediterranean, working as an Armourer and Diver. On leaving the Navy he trained in Meteorology at the Met. School in Stanmore before going south in October 1957 to serve two years with FIDS.

His first year was served at Deception. In his second year he was due to serve at Base Y in Marguerite Bay, but ice conditions were bad and it was not possible to get into the base. He eventually served his second year at Admiralty Bay. He was involved with the two fatal accidents at Admiralty Bay, one close to base and one in a crevasse during a survey and geology field trip . Both colleagues had been at Met. School with him.In 1960 on his return to the UK he joined Consolidated African Selection Trust as a Prospector in alluvial diamonds in Sierra Leone, eventually becoming Chief Prospector in Ghana. Following fifteen years in West Africa he spent time in Central African Republic, Guyana and South Africa specialising in alluvial diamonds and gold. On return to the UK in 1979, he joined Blue Circle Industries in Personnel and Training management before retiring to Spain in 1987 and returning to the UK in 1995.

He has recently been involved in persuading the Brazilians ( who now have a base at Admiralty Bay) to take an interest in maintaining the graves and memorial crosses at Admiralty Bay and in June 1959, the 50th anniversary of the deaths of two of them, they held a memorial Mass at the graveside.

Richard Harbour

Dick Harbour graduated in Civil Engineering at Birmingham University then joined the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey ( FIDS ) as a Topographical Surveyor. After four months training at Directorate of Overseas Survey he sailed on the John Biscoe from Southampton in October 1959. Spent three months in the Falkland Islands assisting DOS surveyors mapping the Islands. Operating out of the Hope Bay Base he spent two years putting in ground control for mapping of the Nordenskjold Coast on the Weddell Sea reaching to the Seal Nunataks. Dick ran the “Huns” a husky team whose name endured until the last two dog teams were taken out of Antarctica in 1994. During the summer seasons, using helicopters from HMS Protector he surveyed the off-shore islands, surviving a crash on a mountain side of Nelson Island in 1961. On return to the UK Dick worked for civil engineering contractors and consultants in England, Scotland and Wales. In 1966 FIDS arranged special leave for Dick to return to Antarctica to help finalise the mapping of the Trinity Peninsula, surviving yet another helicopter crash - this time into the sea.

His civil engineering career has meant living and working in the Caribbean, East Africa, Middle East and in South- East Asia. On joining British Aerospace he worked at both Warton (Lancashire) and Hatfield (Hertfordshire). In 1999/2000 sent by MOD to the Falkland Islands to work at Mount Pleasant Military Base. In retirement he is the BAS Club Treasurer, and also helped to create the Memorial Orchard and the Husky Dog statue both at the BAS Office in Cambridge.

Julian Paren

Julian obtained his doctorate for studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge in 1970. After a spell at the University of Birmingham, he joined the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in 1976 as a glaciologist, retiring in 2002 as Head of Archives and Information and taking over the role of Secretary to the BAS Club. He held the post of Director's Assistant under four BAS Directors: David Drewry, Barry Heywood, Dougal Goodman and Chris Rapley.

He made eight visits to the Antarctic between 1976 and 1990, drilling ice cores throughout the Antarctic Peninsula and studying the interaction between George VI Ice Shelf and the ocean. In 1997 he accompanied the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies to the Antarctic as he sought inspiration for his Antarctic Symphony commissioned by BAS. Before his retirement to Scotland, Julian Paren was a Tutor for the University of Cambridge's Institute of Continuing Education where he ran residential and e-Learning (internet-based) courses on Climate Change and Antarctica.

Roderick Rhys Jones, Chairman

Rod graduated in Civil Engineering from Imperial College London, studying land surveying, as part of that course, under the polar explorer Alfred Stevenson. He joined the British Antarctic Survey as a surveyor in 1964 and after a few months updating the map of Stanley in the Falkland Islands he journeyed to the BAS base of Halley Bay. He was one of the party of ten that sledged to the Tottanfjella in the austral spring of 1965 and journeyed by dog sledge to the Heimfrontfjella where with the South African geologist, Lewis Jukes, he discovered leaf fossils which helped to show that Southern Africa was linked to that part of Antarctica in the super continent Gondwana about 600 million years ago. On the evening of that discovery they heard of the loss of Jeremy Bailey, Dai Wild and John Wilson in a crevasse accident and immediately left to join the others at the site of the accident.

After eighteen months travelling in South and North America and sailing the Pacific he returned to London and following a number of years as editor of an engineering magazine he worked with engineering companies GKN and Oscar Faber. In 1978 he set up a management consultancy serving the international engineering and construction community working in Europe, America and the Far East. He is a director of a web publishing company.